Two employees of the US embassy in Venezuela were shot and wounded early Tuesday in the capital Caracas, in a murky incident that local media and a police source said took place at a strip club.

"We can confirm that two members of the US embassy in Caracas were injured during an incident early this morning," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington.

"Medical staff inform us that their injuries are not life-threatening," he added, noting that they were hurt at "some sort of a social spot" but without specifying the venue or nature of their injuries.

US diplomatic sources later confirmed to AFP that the two men were shot.

The Venezuelan media identified the two men as Roberto Ezequiel Rosas and Paul Marwin, and said they were military attaches at the embassy, but neither the State Department nor the embassy in Caracas would confirm those reports.

"My understanding is that they are other agency personnel, not from the State Department," Ventrell said.

The White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a no-fly zone inside Syria that would be enforced by the U.S. and other countries such as France and Great Britain, two administration officials told The Daily Beast.

The request was made shortly before Secretary of State John Kerry toured the Middle East last week to try and finalize plans for an early June conference between the Syrian regime and rebel leaders in Geneva. The opposition, however, has yet to confirm its attendance and is demanding that the end of Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s rule be a precondition for negotiations, a condition Assad is unlikely to accept.

President Obama’s dual-track strategy of continuing to pursue a political solution to the two-year-old uprising in Syria while also preparing for more direct U.S. military involvement includes authorizing the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the first time to plan for multilateral military actions inside Syria, the two officials said. They added that no decisions on actually using force have yet been made.

“The White House is still in contemplation mode but the planning is moving forward and it’s more advanced than it’s ever been,” one administration official told The Daily Beast. “All this effort to pressure the regime is part of the overall effort to find a political solution, but what happens if Geneva fails? It’s only prudent to plan for other options.”

2013 April 6th, Guizhou province Hezhang county Kele town Party Secretary Yuan Zehong had an altercation because a female minor, Rao Yao (13 years old), accidentally spilled water on a town government car. The town’s Deputy Mayor got out of the car and had an argument that came to blows with this minor girl. At the same time, this deputy mayor called the town’s party secretary Yuan Zehong over. Subsequently, Yuan Zehong led the town’s approximately 30 personnel and the town’s local police personnel in beating Chen Ziju (the minor girl Rao Yao’s aunt), causing Chen Ziju to immediately pass out and die. Just because Chen Ziju had said, “handcuffing will emotionally traumatize Rao Yao”, they then used handcuffs to shackle minor girl Rao Yao and paraded her publicly for approximately 20 minutes (paraded her up and down the street twice, with a police car leading the way with its siren on). Soon after, she was then taken to the local police station where she was illegally detained for 12 hours.

George Zimmerman's defence lawyer will not be allowed to mention in court a number of details about the 17-year-old his client shot dead.

A Florida judge in the Trayvon Martin murder trial ruled that Zimmerman's lawyer cannot talk about the teenager's marijuana use, his suspension from school and his past fighting during opening statements.

Circuit Judge Debra Nelson also ruled that some of Trayvon's texts and other social media statements will not be allowed in opening statements when the trial begins in June.

But she added that some of his personal material could be allowed later depending on how the case progresses.

Union fat cat Mark Rosenthal spends more time sleeping at his desk than organizing labor, a series of damning photos reveals.

The 400-pound president of Local 983 of District Council 37 — the city’s largest blue-collar municipal-workers union — often downs a huge meal, then drops into dreamland in the early afternoon, members of the union’s executive board told The Post.

“He eats lunch when he arrives at work at 2 p.m. Then, like clockwork, he goes to sleep with a cup of soda on the table and the straw in it,” said Marvin Robbins, a union vice president.

“Then he wakes up, looks at his watch and says, ‘I have to get out before the traffic gets bad.’ He’s usually out by 4 p.m. after being at the office two hours.”

Rosenthal is a former Parks Department employee who rose to power campaigning to rid the union of corruption in the late 1990s.

He last made embarrassing headlines in 2009, when he inspired a City Council bill requiring jumbo-size ambulances for morbidly obese patients after he had a stroke at City Hall.

Since then, he hasn’t been making much of an effort to give the city’s ambulances a break and slim down. Union officials say he racks up $1,400 in monthly food bills on the union dime.

Much of the 5-foot-7, 400-plus-pound Rosenthal’s food tabs are for catered union events and meals he writes off as “union business,” board members claim.

Ugandan police fired tear gas at journalists in the capital Kampala on Tuesday who were protesting against a media crackdown after press reports sparked a rare public debate on who will succeed aging President Yoweri Museveni.

Authorities in the east African country halted operations at two newspapers and two radio stations on May 20 after they reported a purported plot to assassinate certain people who said that Museveni was grooming his son for power.

Allegations of such a plot were mentioned by General David Sejusa in a private letter that was leaked to The Daily Monitor, the country's biggest-circulating independent daily, which is owned by Kenya's Nation Media Group and is one of the newspapers that the authorities closed down.

U.S. authorities revealed on Tuesday they have shut down a Costa Rica-based money transfer company they said helped cyber criminals around the world launder around $6 billion in illicit funds using digital currency.

In a statement, officials said authorities in Spain, Costa Rica and New York arrested five people on Friday and seized bank accounts and Internet domains associated with the company, Liberty Reserve.

Digital currency is made up of transferable units that can be exchanged for cash. Over the past decade, its use has expanded, attracting attention from the media and Wall Street. The most widely known digital currency is called Bitcoin. Liberty Reserve's currency was not connected to Bitcoin.

France urged African nations on Tuesday to make a concerted effort to tackle a growing Islamist threat in the deserts of southern Libya.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, speaking on a visit to Niger where suicide bombers attacked a French-run uranium mine last week, said there were signs that Libya's lawless south was becoming a safe haven for Islamist groups in the Sahara.

"It seems we must make a special effort on southern Libya - which is also what Libya wants," Fabius said after meeting Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou. "We spoke about the initiatives which neighboring countries can take in liaison with Libya."

Muslims and Buddhists clashed in Myanmar's northern city of Lashio on Tuesday, witnesses said, as a wave of sectarian violence reached a mountainous region near China's border.

Phone lines were down in the city of about 131,000 people and the extent of the violence was unclear. Witnesses reported several large fires and said a mosque and Buddhist monastery appear to have been torched.

The violence followed unrest between Muslims and Buddhists in other parts of Myanmar over the past year, including fighting in the central city of Meikhtila in March that killed at least 44 people, mostly Muslims, and razed several Muslim neighborhoods. About 12,000 people lost their homes.

The new bird flu strain that has killed 36 people in China has proved resistant to Tamiflu for the first time, a development scientists said was "concerning".

The H7N9 virus was found to be resistant to Roche's widely used flu drug in three out of 14 patients who were studied in detail by doctors from Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Tamiflu, which is given as a pill, belongs to a group of medicines known as neuraminidase inhibitors that currently offer the only known treatment option for bird flu. GlaxoSmithKline's inhaled medicine Relenza has the same mode of action.

Chinese hackers have gained access to designs of more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems, a U.S. report said on Monday, as Australian media said Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for Australia's new spy headquarters.

Citing a report prepared for the Defense Department by the Defense Science Board, the Washington Post said the compromised U.S. designs included those for combat aircraft and ships, as well as missile defenses vital for Europe, Asia and the Gulf.

Among the weapons listed in the report were the advanced Patriot missile system, the Navy's Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The report did not specify the extent or time of the cyber-thefts or indicate if they involved computer networks of the U.S. government, contractors or subcontractors.

But the espionage would give China knowledge that could be exploited in a conflict, such as the ability to knock out communications and corrupting data, the Post said. It also could speed China's development of its defense technology.

Russia will not scrap plans to deliver an air defense system to Syria despite Western opposition because it would help deter "hotheads" intent on intervention in the two-year-old conflict, the deputy foreign minister said on Tuesday.

It also accused the European Union of "throwing fuel on the fire" by letting its own arms embargo on Syria expire.

Israel and France had urged Moscow to refrain from sending high-precision S-300 missile systems to President Bashar al-Assad's government, which is battling a Western and Gulf Arab-backed insurgency.

A suspect in a shooting spree that killed one woman and injured five others in Texas was a Marine wanted for questioning over a murder, it has been revealed.

The Sunday morning rampage ended when Esteban J Smith, of the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base in North Carolina, died in a gunfight with a state trooper and a state game warden.

Spokesman Master Sgt JD Cress said in an emailed statement that authorities were investigating a possible connection between the Texas shooting and a homicide in Jacksonville, North Carolina, near the Marine base.

He also confirmed that the Texas shooting suspect was a serving Marine.

Smith, 23, is thought to have targeted vehicles at random during the 90-minute rampage.

A ten-day inquest into the mysterious death of an American software engineer in Singapore ended on Monday with police admitting that they deviated from official protocols by not dusting for fingerprints or collecting DNA samples at the scene, and by examining his laptop computer.

Shane Truman Todd's body was found in his Singapore apartment by his girlfriend last June 24, and local authorities have claimed that he hanged himself.

But Todd's parents, Rick and Mary Todd, believe that he may have been murdered and left Singapore before the inquiry as they say they have no confidence in the city-state's legal process.

After a heavily-armored bomb technician tore through the vehicle and a bomb-sniffing dog gave it a once-over, the NYPD offered the all-clear and re-opened the key East River crossing to traffic about 7pm on Monday. The suspicious Dodge Durango was parked in a Manhattan-bound lane of the iconic bridge. Police shut down all traffic - both pedestrians and cars - while they ensured that it did not contain explosives.

A 33-year-old documented gang member with 38 prior arrests has been charged in the devastating March shooting of a six-month-old Chicago girl - and police claim the alleged murder was in retaliation for a stolen video game system.

Koman Willis is facing first degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm charges after he allegedly shot dead baby Jonylah Watkins while aiming for her father, Jonathan Watkins.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said at a Monday press conference that Mr Watkins had earlier robbed Willis, prompting the spray of bullets.
The man turned himself in on the weekend though he is yet to provide a statement and no weapon has been recovered, McCarthy said.

Visser, 35, and her partner Lodewijk Severein, 57, disappeared on May 13 shortly after checking into a hotel in Murcia. Their rental car was found nine days later on a street in the southeastern Spanish city. Their disappearance sparked intense media interest in the Netherlands and volunteers plastered the streets of Murcia with posters with pictures of Visser and her partner asking for information about their whereabouts.

South Korea said on Tuesday it was suspending the operations of two nuclear power reactors and extended a shutdown of a third to replace cables that were supplied using fake certificates, threatening power shortages in Asia's fourth-biggest economy.

The government warned there could be "unprecedented" electricity shortages and rolling blackouts this summer due to the nuclear shutdowns. South Korea previously halted the operations of some of its 23 reactors last November after a scandal emerged over parts being supplied using fake documents.

The Asian country is heavily dependent on oil, gas and coal imports, but usually gets about a third of its electricity from nuclear power generation.

Heavy fighting raged around the strategic Syrian border town of Qusair and the capital Damascus on Monday and further reports surfaced of chemical weapons attacks by President Bashar al-Assad's forces on rebel areas.

Intensified government offensives are widely seen as a bid to strengthen Assad's position before a peace conference proposed by the United States and Russia for next month.

In Brussels, British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who was pushing his European Union colleagues to allow member states to arm the rebels, said the expiry of existing EU sanctions this week meant countries could now choose to send weapons to opposition fighters if they wanted to.

Britain risks losing out on £10billion a year in trade deals if the UK withdraws from the European Union, the Obama administration has warned.

US officials have told their British counterparts that a vote to leave would exclude the UK from a transatlantic free trade deal which leaders hope to thrash out later this year.

American diplomats believe it will be very difficult to get the so-called Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – which could generate hundreds of billions of pounds worth of trade – through the US Senate.

Crisis, what crisis? That was the headline which greeted Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan on his return from Guadeloupe in January 1979. Britain was shivering through the Winter of Discontent. It felt as if the whole country was on strike.

Rubbish was piling up in the streets, petrol pumps had run dry, bodies lay unburied in mortuaries. The stench of decay was real, not imagined. Yet at the height of the crisis, Labour Prime Minister Callaghan chose to jet off to the Caribbean for a meaningless four-day international summit.

Arriving back at Heathrow, he was ambushed by reporters. A tanned Sunny Jim attempted to shrug off the mounting chaos. He didn’t actually say: ‘Crisis, what crisis?’ But he might just as well have done. Those three words encapsulated the public perception and were to prove his epitaph.

Whatever Callaghan’s reasons for flying to the Lower Antilles that winter, the indelible impression was that he had deserted Britain at a time of national emergency.

So what are we to make of those pictures of Call Me Dave ‘chillaxing’ in Ibiza in the wake of the murder of Drummer Rigby?

A 20-year-old man has been stabbed to death on a Luton estate where earlier this month police were forced to begin armed patrols in a bid to clamp down on gang shootings.

The victim, who has been named by residents as Jordan McGuire, was fatally injured in the terraced home he shares with his mother on the troubled Marsh Farm estate, which has now seen three murders and 11 shootings since September.

An ambulance crew and armed police rushed to Thrales Close at around 8.15pm on Sunday where he was was found bleeding heavily.

What infuses British governments with a mania for thrusting their sticky hands into other people’s messes that are absolutely no responsibility of ours?

Foreign Secretary William Hague spent the Bank Holiday at an EU meeting in Brussels, striving to persuade his European colleagues not to renew their arms embargo against Syria, and instead ship weapons to the anti-Assad rebels.

Hague, like the Prime Minister, is panting to do a good deed in a wicked world. Enthusiastically backed by the Old Etonian boy scout troop that passes for Downing Street policy advisers, they are eager to follow their 2011 ‘success’ in Libya by helping to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary said the EU was denying rebels the right to defend themselves when they were "having every weapon that's ever been devised dropped on them".

A number of states led by Austria continued to oppose lifting the embargo, but Britain insisted it should be allowed to expire on Friday.

There had been a suggestion that all EU sanctions would be allowed to lapse, with Britain vetoing a new package if it did not get its way on the embargo. In the event, following 14 hours of talks European nations agreed to renew travel and financial sanctions against the regime for another year while accepting that on arms each country would now set its own policy.

Australian officials on Tuesday refused to confirm or deny whether Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints of a new spy agency headquarters as a news report claims. A tiny party essential to the ruling coalition's government demanded an inquiry into how much damage may have been done.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. television reported on Monday night that the plans for the 630 million Australian dollar ($608 million) Australian Security Intelligence Organization building had been stolen through a cyberattack on a building contractor. Blueprints that included details such as communications cabling, server locations and security systems had been traced to a Chinese server, the network reported.

Des Ball, an Australian National University cybersecurity expert, said China could use the blueprints to bug the building, which is nearing completion in Canberra, the capital, after lengthy construction delays.

The number of reported Islamophobic attacks since the Woolwich murder has continued to rise dramatically amid warnings from Muslim community leaders that the backlash which has seen attempted firebombings of mosques is being fuelled by far right groups.

As participants in an English Defence League (EDL) march in Whitehall were recorded giving Nazi-style salutes, Faith Matters, which monitors anti-Muslim hatred, said the number of incidents in the past six days had risen to 193, including ten assaults on mosques. The figure compares to a total of 642 incidents in the previous 12 months – meaning the last week has seen a 15-fold increase on last year’s average of 12 attacks per week.

The spike came as Scotland Yard said it had made a tenth arrest in the investigation into the murder of soldier Lee Rigby on Wednesday. A 50-year-old man was detained on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. Earlier, three men arrested on Saturday were released on police bail.

The government of the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming on Tuesday banned residents from protesting next week against planned chemical production at a refinery, the ban coinciding with the opening of an important trade fair.

An increasingly affluent urban population has begun to object to a China's policy of growth at all costs, which has fuelled the economy for three decades, with the environment emerging as a focus of concern and protests.

There have already been two large protests in Kunming against the production of paraxylene (PX), a chemical used in making fabrics and plastic bottles, at the planned plant.

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he directed Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a review of Department of Justice guidelines for investigations that involve journalists and report back by early July.

Obama has come under criticism for his administration's pursuit of journalists who have reported leaked material.

In recent weeks, it emerged that the Justice Department seized Associated Press phone records as part of a probe into leaks about a 2012 Yemen-based plot to bomb a U.S. airliner and that Fox News correspondent James Rosen had been named a "co-conspirator" in a federal leaks probe involving his reporting on North Korea.

Designs for more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, a U.S. report said on Monday, as a news report in Australia said Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints for Australia's new spy headquarters.

Citing a report prepared for the Defense Department by the Defense Science Board, the Washington Post reported that compromised U.S. designs included combat aircraft and ships, as well as missile defenses vital for Europe, Asia and the Gulf.

Among the weapons listed in the report were the advanced Patriot missile system, the Navy's Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The United States called for deeper military ties with China on Tuesday, including working closer together in areas like peacekeeping, fighting piracy and disaster relief, despite growing tensions between the two on a range of security issues.

White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon made the remarks at a meeting with senior Chinese military leader Fan Changlong, two weeks ahead of a summit between the U.S. and Chinese presidents in California.

"An essential part of building a new model for relations between great powers is ensuring we have a healthy, stable and reliable military to military relationship," Donilon told Fan at the Chinese Defence Ministry, in brief comments before reporters.

More than 70 people were killed in a wave of bombings in markets in Shi'ite neighborhoods across Baghdad on Monday in worsening sectarian violence in Iraq.

No group claimed responsibility for the blasts. But Sunni Muslim Islamist insurgents and al-Qaeda' s Iraqi wing have increased attacks since the beginning of the year and often target Shi'ite districts.

More than a dozen blasts tore into markets and shopping areas in districts across the Iraqi capital, including twin bombs just several hundred meters apart that killed at least 13 people in the capital's Sadr City area, police and hospital officials said.

A court hearing begins Tuesday to determine how Trayvon Martin should be portrayed to a jury when a neighborhood watch captain goes on trial for killing the unarmed black teenager last year.

George Zimmerman, whose highly anticipated second-degree murder is scheduled to start June 10, has said he shot Martin in self-defense during a fight in February 2012.

At issue in Tuesday's hearing are pieces of evidence that suggest 17-year-old Martin used marijuana at an undetermined time and had been suspended from school shortly prior to his death. The defense also wants to use text messages and social media posts that Zimmerman's lawyer said would show that Martin presented himself as "street wise" and interested in guns.

Britain and France are free to supply weapons to Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad from August, after attempts to renew an EU arms embargo on Syria failed on Monday.

After a marathon negotiating session in Brussels, EU governments failed to bridge their differences and let a ban on arming the opposition expire, with France and Britain scoring a victory at the expense of EU unity.

Britain and France have made a commitment not to deliver arms to the Syrian opposition "at this stage," an EU declaration said. But EU officials said the commitment effectively expires on August 1.

Two Yemeni Interior Ministry officials said two foreigners were kidnapped in the coastal province of Taiz, 250 kilometers south of the capital Sanaa, on Monday.

"The couple were walking down Hoban Street when they were kidnapped in open daylight by a number of armed gunmen," an Interior Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

No one has announced responsibility for the kidnapping. "They were forcibly put in a vehicle, which fled the scene immediately," the official added.

An airline passenger who made "unusual statements" and attempted to open an emergency door during a flight Monday morning has been charged with interfering with a flight crew, a federal official said.

Passengers and crews members restrained the man and the flight landed safely.

The incident occurred on Alaska Airlines Flight 132 to Portland, Oregon, from Anchorage, Alaska. Around 5:20 a.m. Pacific Time -- about 10 minutes before the flight was to land -- the passenger, seated in Row 17, allegedly tried to open the emergency door, airline spokeswoman Bobbie Egan said.

A Marine based in North Carolina died during a gun battle with police in Texas after authorities said he killed one person and wounded five others in a shooting spree.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said the suspect, Esteban J. Smith, 23, was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. He was killed early Sunday when he exchanged gunfire with a state trooper and a game warden, police said.

Smith's death ended a shooting spree that had covered more than 80 miles and lasted more than two hours.

A surging wildfire forced more than 1,000 people, including Memorial Day campers, to evacuate the mountains of California’s Santa Barbara County, officials said.

The fire broke out about 2:45 p.m. Monday in Los Padres National Forest about 15 miles north of Santa Barbara and quickly surged to 700 acres amid winds of about 20 mph, U.S. Forest Service officials said.

The fire was threatening about 50 homes, many of them cabins and vacation rentals, and 50 to 75 residents had evacuated, county fire Capt. David Sadecki said.

Paradise Road and the many campgrounds along it were closed, forcing about 1,000 campers to evacuate, Sadecki said.

Part of the roof of a brand new stadium that will be used for the upcoming Confederations Cup collapsed in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador Monday following heavy rains.

Officials said no injuries were reported and only the eastern sector of Arena Fonte Nova which will also host World Cup games next year was damaged.

"Following heavy downpours on Salvador early Monday, water accumulated in the 36 panels of the roof's (plastic) membrane located in the eastern sector, triggering its collapse," Fonte Nova Participacoes, the agency that manages the stadium, said in a statement.

A partial evacuation of the Kasabonika Lake First Nation has taken place, according to Emergency Management Ontario, with about 150 vulnerable residents and their caregivers taken to towns of Hearst and Greenstone as a precaution.

"(The water) is still rising but at a much slower rate than it has been," Mitch Diabo, a community member and lead co-ordinator for the flood response team, told The Canadian Press.

"There was some initial panic (among residents) as far as 'why are some leaving? The rest of us aren't' ... We've managed the perceptions there."

Jakarta Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) predicts that torrential rain accompanied with lightning and strong winds will hit Jakarta until two days ahead. This phenomenon will happen in the afternoon towards late afternoon until evening.

Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency Head, Achmad Zakir said heavy rain accompanied with lightning and strong winds that occurred the last few days is triggered by the transition period from rainy season to dry season. “Medium until heavy rain accompanied with lightning and strong winds will potential to hit Jakarta, yet its intensity tends to decrease. The cause is transition period. Such weather potentially happens to South and North Jakarta,” he expressed, Monday (5/27).

Meteorological authorities issued a yellow alert on Sunday for rainstorms in south China that will last from Sunday to Monday.

Parts of the provincial-level regions of Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Guangxi will be hit by precipitation of up to 200 mm over a period of 24 hours, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said in a statement.

Heavy winds will also hit parts of the Yellow, Huaihe and Yangtze rivers during the same period, the statement said.

Chilean and Argentine officials have issued a red alert for the Copahue volcano bordering the two countries and ordered the evacuation of about 3,000 people.

The nearly 10,000-ft (2,965m) volcano, which sits in the Andes cordillera, straddling Chile's border with Argentina's Neuquen province, has become increasingly active in recent times.

Chile's Interior and Security Minister Andres Chadwick said that the increased activity could lead to an eruption and officials will begin evacuating about 2,240 people, or 460 families, within a 25km (15.5 mile) radius soon.

Nigel Farage's UK Independence Party (UKIP) is on course for further success in next year's European elections, according to a new poll.

The survey found that 27% of those certain to vote in the 2014 contest would support UKIP, with Labour on 23% and the Tories on 21%.

The rise of Mr Farage's party has caused major headaches for the Conservatives, and the ComRes study for the Open Europe think tank found that almost two-fifths (39%) of those who voted Tory in 2010 would back UKIP if the European election was held now.

Fresh evidence of "out of control" payday lenders failing to act responsibly and hounding people for money has been released by a debt advice charity.

Citizens Advice said it had seen cases in recent months which included payday lending to people who were aged under 18, had mental health issues or were drunk when they took out the loan.

The findings come at a time when Britain's biggest payday lenders are under threat of being put out of action if they fail to prove to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) that their practices are up to scratch.

Foreign Secretary William Hague has said there are no immediate plans to send weapons to Syrian rebels after the EU decided to end its arms embargo.

Britain and France had pushed for the ban on supplying the opposition forces fighting Bashar al Assad's regime to be lifted and the failure of ministers to agree an extension to the embargo during 12 hours of talks means it will now end on June 1.

Mr Hague said after the meeting Monday that the decision "sends a very strong message from Europe to the Assad regime".

Sky's foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall said the decision would make little difference in the short-term.